List of Black Mirror episodes
Black Mirror is a British dystopian science fiction anthology television series created by Charlie Brooker and produced by Zeppotron for Endemol. It mainly focuses on humanity's relationship to technology and its consequences.[1] As of 5 June 2019, 22 episodes of Black Mirror have been released, including one special, concluding the fifth series. Additionally, an interactive film was released between series four and five, as part of the anthology. The episodes vary between 41 and 89 minutes in length.
The first two series of Black Mirror comprised three episodes each and aired on Channel 4 from 2011 to 2013, along with the special episode "White Christmas" in 2014. Netflix purchased the program in 2015 and commissioned a series of twelve episodes,[2] which was later divided into two separate series. The third and fourth series, each comprising six episodes, were released in 2016 and 2017 respectively.[3] The interactive film Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was released in 2018, and the fifth series of three episodes was released in June 2019.[4]
Series overview
| Series | Episodes | Originally released | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | Network | ||||
| 1 | 3 | 4 December 2011 | 18 December 2011 | Channel 4 | ||
| 2 | 3 | 11 February 2013 | 25 February 2013 | |||
| Special | 16 December 2014 | |||||
| 3 | 6 | 21 October 2016 | Netflix | |||
| 4 | 6 | 29 December 2017 | ||||
| Film | 28 December 2018 | |||||
| 5 | 3 | 5 June 2019 | ||||
Episodes
Series 1 (2011)
| No. overall | No. in series | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | UK viewers (millions) [5] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "The National Anthem" | Otto Bathurst | Charlie Brooker | 4 December 2011 | 2.07 | |
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Princess Susannah, a British royal family member, gets kidnapped. To return the Princess, the kidnapper demands that the country's Prime Minister, Michael Callow, has sexual intercourse with a pig on live television, otherwise he will kill her. Callow refuses to be blackmailed, but public opinion is gradually turning against him. Security forces are trying to locate the kidnapper, but every effort fails. Under increasing pressure, Callow finally agrees to fulfill the demand. The British people gather in public places and watch the shocking broadcast, allowing the kidnapper to release the Princess thirty minutes before Callow's sex act began without anyone noticing. The kidnapper hangs himself to death, and is later revealed to be an artist who planned the debacle in order to make a statement on people's obsession with the media. One year later, Callow's public approval ratings have fully recovered, but his relationship with his wife has suffered a heavy blow. Cast : Rory Kinnear and Lindsay Duncan | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Fifteen Million Merits" | Euros Lyn | Charlie Brooker & Kanak Huq | 11 December 2011 | 1.52 | |
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Bing feels trapped living in an enclosed, automated space, as a member of a society that rides power-generating stationary bikes in exchange for "merits", a form of currency they can use to buy necessities or entertainment. One day, he hears a girl named Abi singing in the bathroom and falls in love with her. He decides to purchase her a ticket to appear on a talent show programme for fifteen million merits, as a gift. Abi reluctantly accepts and enters the contest, where she is given a psychotropic beverage to drink before she goes on stage. The judges are impressed with her singing, but they suggest she is better suited for pornography. Unable to think clearly, Abi accepts their offer. Bing returns to the stationary bikes, determined to earn the merits he needs to enter the contest himself, and finally manages to buy another ticket. When he gets onstage, he takes the opportunity to express his indignation and threatens to commit suicide while others watch from the audience. After Bing's speech, the judges offer him a weekly show, where he will have the opportunity to rant about the system. Bing accepts their offer. Cast : Daniel Kaluuya, Jessica Brown Findlay, and Rupert Everett | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | "The Entire History of You" | Brian Welsh | Jesse Armstrong | 18 December 2011 | 0.87 | |
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With the implantation of a device called a "grain" behind their ear, users can record everything they see and hear. Using a remote, a user can perform a "re-do", playing back their memories directly through their eye or to a video monitor. At a dinner party, Liam is suspicious of his wife Ffion's behaviour towards a man named Jonas. Returning home, Ffion admits to having been in a relationship with him, though some of her details are inconsistent. The next morning, Liam drunkenly heads to Jonas' house and forces him to delete every memory of sexual intercourse he ever had with Ffion. In the memories appearing on the monitor, Liam notices one which took place after he and Ffion's relationship began. Liam, afraid that he might not be the biological father of Ffion's child, returns home and asks Ffion if Jonas used a condom during that specific sexual encounter. When she asserts that Jonas used one, Liam demands that Ffion show him the re-do as proof - but the re-do verifies that the two of them had unprotected sex. Sometime later, having been left alone in his house, after a few more reminisces of Ffion, Liam goes to the bathroom and uses a razor blade to cut out the grain from behind his ear.Cast : Toby Kebbell and Jodie Whittaker | |||||||
Series 2 (2013)
| No. overall | No. in series | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | UK viewers (millions) [5] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 1 | "Be Right Back" | Owen Harris | Charlie Brooker | 11 February 2013 | 2.01 | |
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Ash lives with his girlfriend Martha, spending a lot of time on social media, until one day he dies in a traffic accident. A few days later, Martha finds out that she is pregnant and decides to use a new technology that is able to simulate Ash's voice and personality on the phone, based on his social media profile and other audiovisual material. This service helps her overcome her despair, until one day she accidentally drops her phone and panics. The artificial Ash tells her of the experimental premium service, where the replica can be transferred to a synthetic body. Martha agrees and receives the android in the mail, who looks and sounds exactly like Ash. Among other features, the android never gets tired or impatient but becomes lethargic when far from a data network. Over time, Martha realizes that the android is incapable of disobeying her orders, and cannot replicate details of Ash's life that weren't on social media (like his secret love of the Bee Gees), and she starts distancing herself from it. Finally, Martha takes the artificial Ash to a cliff and orders it to jump off. As it begins to follow the order, Martha expresses her frustration that Ash would not have simply obeyed. As a response, the android starts begging for its life. Unable to get rid of it, she ends up keeping the android in the attic, where a few years later her little daughter visits it every weekend. Cast : Hayley Atwell and Domhnall Gleeson | |||||||
| 5 | 2 | "White Bear" | Carl Tibbetts | Charlie Brooker | 18 February 2013 | 1.69 | |
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A woman wakes up in a house with amnesia. She notices people on the street recording her on their phones, but when she speaks to them they ignore her. When a masked man opens fire at her with a shotgun, she flees and meets Jem, another woman running away from the "hunters". Jem explains that the people recording her have been affected by a signal that appeared on their screens, while the hunters are unaffected people acting sadistically. The woman follows Jem in her plan to reach the transmitter and destroy it. When they reach the facilities, they are attacked by two more hunters. The woman manages to wrestle a shotgun away, but when she pulls the trigger it only sprays confetti, revealing that everything was staged. The woman is told that her name is Victoria Skillane and she has been found guilty for her part in the brutal killing of a young girl. She has been sentenced to undergo this psychological torture daily in the "White Bear Justice Park", where visitors are allowed to record her daily suffering. Victoria is returned to the house where she awoke and has her memory of the day's events wiped clean, in an extremely painful procedure. Cast : Lenora Crichlow and Michael Smiley | |||||||
| 6 | 3 | "The Waldo Moment" | Bryn Higgins | Charlie Brooker | 25 February 2013 | 1.28 | |
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Jamie Salter is a comedian controlling a vulgar computer-animated bear named Waldo on a late-night show. The character becomes popular with the British public and a pilot for a series is commissioned. Jamie reluctantly agrees to have Waldo enter an upcoming by-election to promote the pilot, having no interest in politics himself. Waldo is projected onto a screen on the side of a van and targets the Conservative candidate Liam Monroe by following him around during his campaign. Jamie sleeps with the Labour candidate Gwendolyn Harris, with whom he starts falling in love. When Gwendolyn follows her campaign manager's advice and distances herself from Jamie, he exposes her publicly as a career politician. Waldo gains more public support, attracting American interest for global branding, but Jamie rejects the idea. On the final day of the campaign trail, Jamie begs the public not to vote for Waldo, but gets fired for it. Monroe wins the election, with Waldo coming second and Gwendolyn third. In the future, Jamie wakes up homeless in a dystopian police state, with Waldo's face appearing on every screen on the streets. Cast : Daniel Rigby, Chloe Pirrie, and Jason Flemyng | |||||||
Special (2014)
| No. overall | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | UK viewers (millions) [5] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | "White Christmas" | Carl Tibbetts | Charlie Brooker | 16 December 2014 | 1.66 | |
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On Christmas Day, Matt and Joe start talking about their past for the first time, after five years that they have been stationed together in a remote cabin. Matt used to help single men seduce women. His clients had optical implants that allowed him to see through their eyes and give them advice in real-time using the "Eye-Link" technology. His main profession, however, was subjugating artificial copies of clients' consciousness, stored into bean-sized chips called "cookies", into docile personal assistants in charge of running smart houses. In turn, Joe reveals that after a domestic squabble, his pregnant girlfriend Beth "blocked" him, using a technology that turned them into incomprehensible white and grey blurs to each other. The block lasted for years, preventing him from talking to Beth or the child, until Beth died in an accident. Joe found the child in Beth's father's cabin, but discovers that the little girl was not his daughter. Angered, Joe killed the child's grandfather and left. After Joe tells Matt that the girl also died in the blizzard, trying to get help for her grandfather, it is revealed that everything is taking place inside Joe's cookie, where Matt was trying to extract Joe's confession, in exchange for his own release from prison. Due to the illegal, voyeuristic aspect of his side job, him being incarcerated due to a deadly incident that occurred on his watch, Matt is registered as a sex offender. This results in him being universally blocked following his release (as a red blur to signify his status as a sex offender). Joe's artificial consciousness remains trapped in the cabin, having its time perception changed to 1,000 years a minute. Cast : Jon Hamm, Rafe Spall, Oona Chaplin, and Natalia Tena | ||||||
Series 3 (2016)
| No. overall | No. in series | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 1 | "Nosedive" | Joe Wright | Story by : Charlie Brooker Teleplay by : Rashida Jones & Mike Schur | 21 October 2016 | |
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Using eye implants and mobile devices, people rate their online and in-person interactions on a five-star scale. This system cultivates insincere relationships, as a person's rating significantly affects their socioeconomic status. Lacie is a young woman currently rated at 4.2 and keen to achieve self-improvement, hoping to reach a 4.5 rating to qualify for a discount to a luxury apartment. Lacie tries to gain favour from highly-rated people, as they have larger impacts on scores, and sees a great chance to achieve her goal, when school friend Naomi asks her to be maid-of-honour at her upcoming wedding, with many highly-rated guests. After a series of mishaps on her way to the wedding that send her ratings plummeting, Naomi calls Lacie and tells her not to come. Enraged, Lacie manages to get to the celebratory dinner; she grabs the microphone and starts giving the speech she had written. The guests rate her negatively, causing her rating to drop to zero. She becomes dangerously upset and security removes her from the area. She is placed in a cell and has the technology supporting the rating system removed from her eyes. While imprisoned, she gets into an argument with another prisoner, no longer concerned about being rated. Cast : Bryce Dallas Howard, Alice Eve, Cherry Jones, and James Norton | ||||||
| 9 | 2 | "Playtest" | Dan Trachtenberg | Charlie Brooker | 21 October 2016 | |
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Cooper leaves his home in America to travel the world, but ends up stranded in England after a banking error. He avoids calling his mother for help, as he has been unable to connect with her following his father's death due to early-onset Alzheimer's. While staying at the house of a girl he had slept with the previous night, Cooper offers to participate in a playtest of an augmented reality video game. A gadget with the ability to layer lifelike images and sounds into his perception is implanted at the back of his neck, though a phone call from his mother causes an interference during the initialisation process. After the gadget probes his brain for information on things that scare him, the test begins with Cooper being left alone in a spooky mansion. There, Cooper endures some jumpscares at first, but when he later experiences severe mental and physical pain the test is terminated. Cooper returns home to his mother, who does not recognise him, and he realises that—like his father—she too has been afflicted with Alzheimer's. At this point, it is revealed that all events subsequent to the signal interference were taking place in Cooper's head. The interference had caused his brain synapses to light up all at once, resulting in his death shortly afterwards. Cast : Wyatt Russell, Hannah John-Kamen, Wunmi Mosaku, and Ken Yamamura | ||||||
| 10 | 3 | "Shut Up and Dance" | James Watkins | Charlie Brooker & William Bridges | 21 October 2016 | |
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Nineteen-year-old Kenny downloads an anti-malware program to fix his infected laptop. Unbeknownst to him, the program activates his laptop camera, which records him masturbating to internet porn. Hackers threaten to e-mail a video of his act to his entire contacts list, unless he follows their instructions. Another victim of the hackers gives Kenny a box with a cake inside, which he then has to deliver to Hector, a man being blackmailed over infidelity. Kenny and Hector get into an assigned car and drive to a bank, which they must rob using a gun hidden inside the cake. Kenny robs the bank and they drive to the drop-off point in a nearby wood. Kenny alone carries the money, as Hector leaves to destroy the car. In the wood, Kenny meets another man, who is being blackmailed for watching child pornography. The man explains to Kenny that they are to fight to the death and attacks him. Kenny manages to kill the man, but the hackers proceed to leak the blackmail material on each of their victims anyway. Traumatised, Kenny receives a call from his crying mother, which confirms that he too was masturbating to child pornography. The police arrive at his location and apprehend him. Cast : Alex Lawther and Jerome Flynn | ||||||
| 11 | 4 | "San Junipero" | Owen Harris | Charlie Brooker | 21 October 2016 | |
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In 1987, shy Yorkie visits a bar in a beach resort town named San Junipero, where she meets the outgoing Kelly. The two young women are attracted to each other and they sleep together. After that, Yorkie is not able to find Kelly again, until a man suggests looking for her in a different time. Yorkie visits 1980, 1996, and finally manages to find Kelly in 2002. Kelly explains that she is dying and that she was not looking for a relationship. San Junipero is revealed to be a virtual world, set across different time periods, where dead people can upload their artificial consciousness, while visitors, like Yorkie and Kelly, can spend a brief trial period in the system once a week. In real life, old Kelly visits bedridden Yorkie in a hospital, and discovers that she was paralyzed 40 years earlier, after running her car off the road in despair, when her parents rejected her for coming out. Kelly marries Yorkie and authorises her wish to be euthanised and uploaded to San Junipero. As her health worsens, Kelly elects to do the same, overcoming her thoughts of her dead husband and daughter who were not uploaded to the system. Kelly and Yorkie reunite in San Junipero forever. Cast : Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis | ||||||
| 12 | 5 | "Men Against Fire" | Jakob Verbruggen | Charlie Brooker | 21 October 2016 | |
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Soldiers are exterminating mutated humans called "roaches" in a foreign country, using a neural implant called MASS, which enhances their senses and provides instant data via augmented reality. When soldier Stripe encounters several aggressive roaches, one of them uses a mysterious device that disrupts his MASS interface. The next day, Stripe starts seeing roaches as humans, and tries to save a frightened woman from his fellow female soldier, Hunter. The woman tells him that MASS disguises the fact that roaches are regular humans, hated by everyday civilians due to propaganda and prejudice. Hunter knocks Stripe unconscious and brings him back to the military base, where he is incarcerated. An officer named Arquette reveals to him that the true purpose of the MASS implants is to dehumanise the enemy, allowing soldiers to kill them more efficiently, as part of a eugenics program. Arquette threatens to imprison Stripe, endlessly looping raw footage of him killing ordinary humans during his service, unless he consents to have his MASS system reset. In the future, Stripe returns home and sees a beautiful woman waiting for him, but this is revealed to be a figment created by the MASS implant. Cast : Malachi Kirby, Madeline Brewer, Ariane Labed, Sarah Snook, and Michael Kelly | ||||||
| 13 | 6 | "Hated in the Nation" | James Hawes | Charlie Brooker | 21 October 2016 | |
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To counteract a drop in the United Kingdom's bee population, Granular has developed robotic bees, known as "ADIs". Detectives Karin Parke and Blue Coulson, together with the help of NCA agent Shaun Li, discover that hacked ADIs have caused the deaths of two people by getting inside their heads, causing unbearable pain. Coulson finds that the two victims had been targeted with the "#DeathTo" hashtag on social media, as part of the "Game of Consequences", where the person that leads the hashtag tables is killed every day. After a third person is killed, the hashtag starts rapidly growing in use. The analysis of the compromised ADIs proves the hacker to be former Granular employee Garrett Scholes. Police raid his location, yielding a disk drive that contains a list of every person who has used the hashtag. Parke concludes that these people are Scholes' real targets. Agent Li deactivates the system to bounce the hacker out, but when it comes back online, swarms of ADIs target a total of 387,036 people, resulting in a tremendous massacre. Sometime later, Parke is summoned to a hearing, where she talks about her involvement in the case. Coulson, who faked her own death in order to pursue Scholes, finds him abroad and texts Parke "Got him". Cast : Kelly Macdonald, Faye Marsay, and Benedict Wong | ||||||
Series 4 (2017)
| No. overall | No. in series | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 1 | "USS Callister" | Toby Haynes | William Bridges & Charlie Brooker | 29 December 2017 | |
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Robert Daly, a reclusive but gifted programmer and co-founder of a popular massive multiplayer online game, is embittered by the lack of recognition for his work. He has created a mock Star Trek-like simulation on a private server, using DNA from his co-workers to create sentient digital clones of them, serving under himself as their abusive captain of the starship USS Callister. When the digital clone of new hire Nanette Cole is brought into his game, Cole's clone encourages the other copies to revolt against Daly. After obtaining an in-simulation device that lets them communicate outside the private server, Cole's clone blackmails the real Cole to distract Daly long enough for the digital clones to take over Callister and escape off the private server, while Daly, trapped within the simulation at the onset of a game patch, ends up motionless in the real world. Cast : Jesse Plemons, Cristin Milioti, Jimmi Simpson, Michaela Coel, and Billy Magnussen | ||||||
| 15 | 2 | "Arkangel" | Jodie Foster | Charlie Brooker | 29 December 2017 | |
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Marie briefly loses track of her three-year old daughter Sara, and decides to have her implanted with the Arkangel system, allowing Marie to use a tablet to track her, monitor her health and emotional state, and censor sights she doesn't want Sara to see, such as blood. As Sara grows up, Marie recognises that Arkangel is hampering Sara's growth, but the tracking device cannot be removed; instead, Marie disables the tablet. As Sara becomes a rebellious teenager, Marie becomes distrustful of her and reactivates Arkangel, discovering her to be taking drugs with a boyfriend Marie does not approve of. When Sara sneaks off to spend the night with her boyfriend against Marie's orders, Arkangel warns Marie, and Marie secretly gives Sara emergency contraception pills, causing her to get sick at school. Sara returns home and finds Marie has reactivated Arkangel; Sara beats Marie with the tablet, unaware of how much harm she has done due to the censoring filter, and runs away, Marie calling after her in vain. Cast : Rosemarie DeWitt, Brenna Harding, and Owen Teague | ||||||
| 16 | 3 | "Crocodile" | John Hillcoat | Charlie Brooker | 29 December 2017 | |
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Mia and her boyfriend Rob are in a hit-and-run with a cyclist, killing him; Rob has them dispose of the body and stay quiet on the matter. Fifteen years later, Mia is married with a son, and has a successful career. While on travel, Rob visits Mia and suggests they tell the truth about the bicyclist, but Mia, fearing this would ruin her career, kills Rob and hides his body. Meanwhile, Shazia, an insurance investigator, is following a trail of accounts on an unrelated accident, using a device that can visualize memories from eyewitnesses. Shazia sees one memory that has Mia as an eyewitness to the accident, and approaches Mia about her help in the investigation. Mia is unable to avoid helping, and Shazia sees Rob's murder in her memories. Though Shazia promises not to say anything even to her husband, Mia kills her, and then travels to her home to kill her husband and their infant child, preventing anyone from using a similar device to identify her presence. Police investigating the deaths find that the infant was blind and would have not seen the culprit, but use the memory device on the pet guinea pig, and close in on Mia as she watches her son's school play. Cast : Andrea Riseborough, Kiran Sonia Sawar, Andrew Gower, Anthony Welsh, and Claire Rushbrook | ||||||
| 17 | 4 | "Hang the DJ" | Tim Van Patten | Charlie Brooker | 29 December 2017 | |
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Frank and Amy are two of several that participate in the System, where they are instructed by a personal device called the Coach to meet other people and spend a pre-determined amount of time with them. Frank and Amy are matched for a short period but both find themselves attracted to each other. After several more assignments, the two are rematched by Coach, but Amy insists they not look at the time prescribed by Coach. They spend much time together, but Frank is drawn to look at the time given by Coach, and finds that initially lasting several years, his action caused the time to reduce considerably. They are both soon rematched, with Amy assigned to a new partner that will be her permanent pair. Amy asks Coach for her to see Frank one last time, during which she encourages to break the System, fleeing the area and climbing over an impossibly high wall. At the top, they discover they are one pair of nearly one thousand Franks and Amys that have escaped the system. This is all revealed to be the inner workings of a dating app being used by the real-life Frank and Amy, testing their compatibility by simulating their behavior over one thousand trials. Cast : Georgina Campbell and Joe Cole | ||||||
| 18 | 5 | "Metalhead" | David Slade | Charlie Brooker | 29 December 2017 | |
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Robotic guard-dogs have turned against humans, leaving the few human survivors to fend for themselves. While trying to retrieve supplies from a warehouse, Bella's companions are killed by the robots, but she manages to flee and evade their tracking devices. After eluding a sole robot by exhausting it of its power, Bella makes her way to a secured home, finding a shotgun and other weapons. However, the robot, after recharging, finds her trail. Bella manages to blind the robot and then destroy it with the shotgun, but not before the robot fires off more tracking devices, several of which embed themselves in her skin. Bella considers pulling them out but recognizes it is futile as she would sever her carotid artery in the process. As more robots swarm towards the house, she radios her base to let them know what happened and subsequently kills herself. It is revealed Bella's team was trying to recover teddy bears for the survivors. Cast : Maxine Peake | ||||||
| 19 | 6 | "Black Museum" | Colm McCarthy | Charlie Brooker | 29 December 2017 | |
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Nish stops to recharge her car and enters the nearby "Black Museum", owned and run by Rolo Haynes. Rolo shows her various artifacts, all related to illicit technology that he had been involved with. He describes several stories connected to them. One involves Dr Peter Dawson, a doctor who developed a device that allowed him to experience the pain of his patients to aid in diagnosis, but soon found pain giving way to addictive pleasure, and eventually killed a man to experience the sensation. Another case involves Carrie, a comatose woman whose consciousness was transferred into her husband Jack, but when Jack started seeing another woman, he forcefully transferred Carrie into a plush monkey for their son Parker who soon discarded the toy as he grew up; Carrie still is alive within the plush at the museum. Rolo shows Nish the star attraction of the museum, a holographic representation of the consciousness of convicted murderer Clayton Leigh that Rolo bought just prior to his electrocution, allowing visitors to electrocute him repeatedly. Nish reveals that her visit was not incidental, as she is the daughter of Clayton, who was wrongfully convicted. After poisoning Rolo, Nish transfers Rolo's consciousness into Clayton's head, much like Carrie was transferred into Jack's head, forcing him to live through the last electrocution which overloads Clayton's synapses and wipes the digital copies of them both. Rolo's agony is captured in a souvenir keychain which Nish takes along with the doll with Carrie's consciousness and shorts out the museum's electricity, starting a fire. Nish drives off with her mother, her consciousness living within Nish, who tells her Clayton would be proud of her. Cast : Douglas Hodge and Letitia Wright | ||||||
Film (2018)
| Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bandersnatch | David Slade | Charlie Brooker | 28 December 2018 | |
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Young programmer Stefan Butler begins to create an adventure video game called Bandersnatch, based on a "choose your own adventure" book of the same name. He pitches the game to Mohan Thakur, who works for video game company Tuckersoft, while Stefan works on the game at home on his own. Stefan begins to feel like he is being controlled and descends into madness in the same way that the book author Jerome F. Davies did. The viewer chooses his actions, which can lead him variously to discuss his mother's death with his therapist, take hallucinogens with game creator Colin Ritman, kill his father Peter, kill Thakur and experience vivid dreams, among other things. Cast : Fionn Whitehead, Will Poulter, Craig Parkinson, Alice Lowe, Asim Chaudhry and Jeff Minter | ||||
Series 5 (2019)
| No. overall | No. in series | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 1 | "Striking Vipers" | Owen Harris | Charlie Brooker | 5 June 2019 | |
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Danny lives with his wife Theo and son Tyler. His friend Karl introduces him to a virtual reality fighting game called Striking Vipers X, in which he can feel the physical sensations of his character. Danny and Karl play as Lance and Roxette and after their first fight begins with kissing. They regularly have sex in the game until Theo confronts Danny about their deteriorating relationship. Danny locks the game up. Several months later, Theo invites Karl around for dinner as a surprise for Danny's birthday, and Karl tells Danny that he has been unable to recreate the sensation felt when having virtual sex with him. The pair have sex in the game again and then as an experiment kiss in real life; but neither feels anything. Karl still wants to continue doing it in the game and they begin brawling in an alley until a passing police officer arrests them. Theo picks Danny up from the police station and presses him to tell her what caused the fight. Later, it is Danny's birthday again and it is revealed he is now permitted, by mutual agreement, to have virtual sex with Karl in Striking Vipers X on that day in return for Theo going to a bar once a year to pick up a strange man. Cast : Anthony Mackie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Beharie, Pom Klementieff, and Ludi Lin | ||||||
| 21 | 2 | "Smithereens" | James Hawes | Charlie Brooker | 5 June 2019 | |
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Chris works as a driver for Hitcher, a ridesharing company. He goes to a group therapy session where a mother talks about her daughter's suicide 18 months ago. He has sex with her and afterwards she makes her daily attempt to access her daughter's Persona account before it locks her out. The next day, Chris picks up Jaden, an employee of social media company Smithereen, and holds him hostage at gunpoint. Police notice suspicious activity and chase the car until Chris swerves to avoid two cycling teenagers and comes to rest in the middle of a field. As more police arrive, Chris gets Jaden to contact people at Smithereen and demands to speak to the CEO, Billy Bauer. Police and Smithereen employees investigate Chris, finding out that his fiancée died in a car crash a few years prior. By lying to Jaden about his gun being fake, Chris works out that the police are listening to him in the car through his phone. He demands to speak to Billy Bauer in the next five minutes, threatening to shoot Jaden otherwise. Despite his employees advising against it, Billy accepts the call. Chris recounts that his fiancée died in a car crash when he was driving and looked at his phone, though the other driver (who also died) was blamed for being drunk at the time. He gets Billy to contact the Persona CEO and give the mother he met her daughter's password. He then attempts to take his own life, but Jaden tries to grab the gun off him. A sniper shoots as the pair grapple over the gun. Cast : Andrew Scott, Damson Idris, and Topher Grace | ||||||
| 22 | 3 | "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" | Anne Sewitsky | Charlie Brooker | 5 June 2019 | |
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Rachel and Jack are sisters who live with their father after their mother's death. For her birthday, Rachel gets an AI doll called Ashley Too, designed after the popstar Ashley O. She dances to an Ashley O song at the school talent competition, but the routine ends badly. Meanwhile, Ashley O refuses to take pills given to her by Catherine, her manager and aunt, and plans to use the illegal activity as a way to get out of her contract. Catherine realises this and puts the powdered pills into her food, to put her in a coma. When Ashley Too sees that Ashley O is comatose on a news report, she malfunctions. Jack manages to remove part of the software from her and the doll comes to life, claiming to be a digital copy of Ashley O which previously had a limiter on its brain function. Ashley Too convinces Jack and Rachel to go to her house to find evidence against Catherine, and Jack drives dangerously to their house. They pretend to be mouse catchers for the bodyguard to let them in and Rachel and Ashley Too find Ashley O comatose with physical restraints in her bedroom. Ashley Too unplugs a wire attached to Ashley O and she begins to regain consciousness. An employee of Catherine is alerted to this and comes to sedate her; Rachel and Jack manage to use his sedative against him. With Ashley O and Ashley Too, they crash a venue where Catherine is delivering a speech announcing a new holographic Ashley O who will perform on tour. Later, Jack and Ashley O are seen performing alternative music together. Cast : Miley Cyrus, Angourie Rice, Madison Davenport, and Susan Pourfar | ||||||
References
- Brooker, Charlie (1 December 2011). "Charlie Brooker: the dark side of our gadget addiction". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 5 October 2013. Retrieved 17 December 2011.
- Birnbaum, Debra (25 September 2015). "'Black Mirror' Lands at Netflix". Variety. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
- Brooker, Charlie (2 August 2016). "Two seasons of six". Twitter. Archived from the original on 9 January 2021. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
- Strause, Jackie (15 May 2019). "'Black Mirror' Reveals Cast, Premiere Date for Season 5". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 15 May 2019. Retrieved 15 May 2019.
- "Top 30 Programmes". BARB. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
External links
- Black Mirror on Netflix
- Black Mirror at Channel 4
- Black Mirror – list of episodes at IMDb
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